


The Enigmatic Art of Still Life

by Captain_Panda



Series: Growing Pains [7]
Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Iron Man 3, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie), Romance, Slow Burn, Steve Rogers and the 21st Century
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-19
Updated: 2020-08-19
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:36:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25992250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Captain_Panda/pseuds/Captain_Panda
Summary: Steve Rogers had plant fever.Or: Tony revisits Steve's apartment and has a conversation about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness . . . and Steve's twenty or so new plant children.Seriously, this guy speaks French,andhe's a botanist?Takes place in amorphous pre-Age of Ultron, post-Iron Man 3environment.
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Series: Growing Pains [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1707091
Comments: 20
Kudos: 110





	The Enigmatic Art of Still Life

**Author's Note:**

> And I'm back! Welcome back, my friends, to another episode of this charming side journey. Not abandoned, merely set aside temporarily in pursuit of another charming side journey--and now that my Disney saga is complete, I'm excited to get back to Growing Pains!
> 
> Hope this makes up for its absence. <3
> 
> Yours always,  
> -Cap'n Panda

Steve Rogers . . . had plant fever.

“If I’d known I would have company, I would’ve watered ‘em sooner,” Steve told Tony, before reclaiming his pitcher and watering a potted plant carefully. “Sorry, no exceptions. They’re like kids.”

“Really not, actually,” Tony said, glad for the conversational _in_ so he didn’t have to gawk blankly at the green menagerie any longer. “You, uh—this a cry for help or—”

“No, not at all.” Switching to a taller plant, Steve explained—as much as a couple dozen potted plants _could_ be explained—“I just thought it might be more interesting than living with brown walls.”

“Well. You’re not wrong,” Tony uttered, running a finger over a waxy leaf, testing its realness and grimacing when he found that it was, in fact, real. “ _Books_ too pedestrian?”

“Who reads their walls?” Steve said, still watering the tall plant—thirsty bastard.

“So, you . . . look at _plants_ ,” Tony said.

“No, I take care of ‘em,” Steve said, switching to another plant. _Finally_. It was stouter and spikier than the tall plant and cleanly labeled with a penciled in sticker: _Spider Plant._ Tony shuddered and stepped away from it instinctively, moving towards the center of the room, away from the _walls_ of green. “Gives me somethin’ to do.”

“Yes, I knew you were bored, Steve,” Tony said, circling slowly, like one of the vines would snatch him if he kept his eyes off it for too long. “I didn’t realize the problem had gotten this out of hand.”

Letting out a vaguely disgruntled noise, Steve kept his back to him and asked, “You need something, Tony?”

Aware that he was one more strike from being booted from the game, Tony said in the most candid voice he could muster up: “Just stoppin’ by to see an old friend. Unless that’s _illegal_ in this country.”

Infuriatingly calm, Steve switched to another plant. “ _Illegal_ is a strong word. I don’t recall giving you a key, though.”

“Borrowed it from your pretty neighbor,” Tony said.

“Tony,” Steve warned.

“Your primarily brilliant and secondarily attractive neighbor,” Tony corrected, rolling his eyes. Finding the one chair in the room, only loosely fringed in potted plants, he dared to have a seat. “You know, if you ever want a lady friend, you gotta get over the whole _women are to be seen and admired but never spoken of_.”

“Whoever said anything about a lady friend?” Steve grunted. He ambled into the little kitchen to refill his pitcher, adding, “Maybe I just like spending time with women and not having a—”

“Wife and kids and a white-picket-fence?” Tony filled in. “Rather it be you and you and nothing but your five thousand plant children?”

Steve sighed. “You allergic to plants or something?”

Shrugging, Tony hiked a leg over the arm over the armchair and said, “Terribly. I am suffocating—”

“Leg off the chair.”

“Oh, come _on_.” Slumping to the floor in mock despair, Tony said, “Happy, Your Majesty?”

“Off the floor.”

“No.”

Steve finished watering the last potted plant in his lineup before setting the pitcher down and turning to look at Tony. His expression was far from impressed. “Get off the floor,” he repeated. “What kind of grown man plays around on the—”

Spitefully and intentionally, Tony propped his feet up on the chair, shoes _on_ , and interrupted, “I’m sorry, did I ring for the Fun Police, or is our Democracy of Free Entertainment simply crumbling at our feet?”

Still glaring unblinkingly at him, Steve set his jaw. It was pretty impressive, the kind of look that made low-ranking military folks swallow hard in apology before he could even start on a proper dressing-down. Upside-down, the effect was somewhat dampened. Tony said dryly, “Honestly, if we’re going on stereotypes, shouldn’t The Man—” he made very sure to articulate it in jest, even though Steve’s stormy façade hardly broke, not sharing the joke, “have the right to do whatever he pleases in—”

“Get out.”

Blinking once in surprise, Tony maneuvered until he was seated upright on the floor, looking up at Steve, still standing across the room but _bristling_ with anger, and said, “Kidding.” Steve said nothing, waiting impatiently, and Tony finally sighed and propped himself into the chair. “Happy?”

More ominous silence. Then, apparently deciding it wasn’t worth arguing him to the door, Steve simply left the pitcher and Tony where they both were and retreated into the kitchen. 

“Gonna blow the roof off this place?” Tony asked, when he heard the gas stove clicking, followed by the flame catching, precisely on cue. “I can still hear you.”

Steve Rogers ignored him completely, rummaging around in the other room like he wasn’t even _there_.

That would not do.

Giving it a moment more to see if Steve’s unbearable nobility would drive him to make amends for Tony’s crimes, Tony pushed himself to his feet and crossed the floor. He nearly did a double-take when he saw Steve Rogers busy chopping garlic into thin slices near a pot of water.

“What’s for dinner?” Tony asked peppily, hopping up onto the farthest counter from him. 

Steve didn’t respond. In the distance, thunder rumbled softly. Tony leaned forward as though to hop off the counter and said breezily, “Well, that’s my signal. Good talk—”

“I’m sorry.”

Checkmate. “No, really, it should be me,” Tony breezed, feigning a taking-one-for-the-team tone. “I am merely a mangy intruder, preying upon your gracious hospitality—”

“You’re not mangy,” Steve grumbled, carefully slicing up a second clove. It made a very pleasant clip-clip-clip sound that, barring the loud patter of unexpected and heavy rainfall, could be called soothing. “You’re.” He actually paused, looked fully at Tony, and said, “A character.”

Tony arched both eyebrows, but Steve had already returned to his cloves, dicing up a third by the time Tony managed to reply, “Like, a clown?”

“No, Tony,” Steve sighed, clicking on another burner.

“A magician,” Tony parried. “A _musician_. I can play the piano, you know.”

“Really?” Steve actually sounded intrigued.

“What, they didn’t have those?” Biting his tongue a little, realizing he’d put the hackles back up, Tony added in a deliberately diffusing manner, “I’m no good at it, but I—”

“Can’t play at all, so you’re better than me.”

“Can’t cook, either,” Tony confessed, surprising himself.

Steve dismissed, “Everyone can cook.”

“Thanks, Gustav.” When Steve frowned at him, somehow still managing the open pan with one hand, Tony elaborated, “ _Ratatouille?_ ”

“Spaghetti aglio e olio,” he corrected.

Tony—had a stroke. Surely. “What?”

“Spaghetti,” Steve repeated slowly. “Aglio e olio,” he finished, far too briskly.

Tony shook his head, hopping off the counter. The hackles went up higher. He aborted the mission to step closer to the stove— _his_ space, evidently—and backed off to the little table by the window, plopping down nonthreateningly. The hackles went down a touch. It was amazing how easy Steve Rogers was to read, actually, for a guy so famously unflinching—Tony was very tempted to tip the chair opposite him and see how far it would take before Steve snapped at him to cut it out, but he resisted the impulse, offering conversationally, “So, you speak Italian?”

“Here and there,” Steve said, which was not what Tony expected at all. He seemed slightly ashamed, adding, “Can’t hold a conversation in it, but . . . you know. _Si. No. Mi dispiace._ ”

“ _Buon giorno,_ ” Tony volleyed.

“ _Buona sera_ ,” Steve replied with a nod, like it was its own skit. “S’about it, really.”

“You speak . . . rudimentary Italian,” Tony said, aware that his voice was more impressed than he wanted it to sound.

“ _Je parle couramment le français_ ,” Steve Rogers rattled off suddenly and unexpectedly, like it wasn’t the sexiest thing Tony had ever heard, conversational French issuing from the proudest American to walk the Earth, and he—well, he hinged his jaw back on with his hand after a too-long pause, thunder grumbling outside in muffled cosmic amusement. “I take it you don’t?” Steve added, slowly and lightly, in a very different tone. Almost playful. Finally. A ball in his court.

Mouth unexpectedly dry, Tony could only cough out, “Uh. On weekends.”

Steve’s eyes lingered on him for a long moment, an air-stealing moment. Then he returned calmly to the stove. “What brings a guy like you to a place like this anyway, Stark?” he asked, stirring the pasta carefully.

“Morbid curiosity,” Tony shrugged.

“No hard feelings?”

Tony tucked his elbows on the table and rested his chin in hands. “Sweetheart, I invented repressing hard feelings.” And there went his window, shuttering closed like an irate neighbor refusing to engage in a little witty repartee. “And I kind of owe you a pair of sunglasses.” Reaching in his pocket for the dusty old pair he’d carefully fished out of the briar patch in the Mojave, he slid them on the table and said, “You’re welcome.”

“You’re an enigma,” Steve said, back to him.

“Well.” Tony paused to let the thunder say its piece, then corrected him, “I’m actually a _gift_ , but I’ll take enigma. That was a brilliant piece of technology.”

“Killed a lot of people.”

“My middle name.” Steve looked at him, unimpressed. He had four different unimpressed looks that Tony had on record, and this one fell into none of the preexisting, _Tired, Bored, Angry,_ or _Confused_ categories. He looked borderline angry, maybe a touch bored, but mostly, overwhelmingly blank. It was decidedly eerie. “You know. _Merchant of Death_.”

“Right.” The blankness shifted to another shade of unreadability, almost iciness. “That’s what they call it now?”

“No, that’s what they call _me_ now,” Tony corrected him. “It?” he added belatedly.

Steve seemed tempted to let his pasta burn, but he didn’t seem capable of letting something good die for the sake of arguing with Tony Stark. He went back to his inanimate objects, ignoring the flesh-and-blood human being in favor of the raw silence that descended uncomfortably over them. Even the loud rain seemed only to emphasize how empty the space between them was without words.

“I retired,” Tony said suddenly, unable to let it drag on, a dissonant note that had to break, and every line of Steve’s body went rigid. Tony was surprised at how non-threatened he felt, despite the proximity to lightning-in-a-bottle—maybe it was his own recklessness that drove him closer to the waterfall edge, but he found himself at it and looking down and wondering only how that much raw power could exist on Earth. In a tiny, immaculate kitchen in raggedy New York. Man of the people, all right.

Steve said nothing, working on his food, methodically, like he was alone again. It was like watching a life-size diorama; there was no _in_ , no way to communicate despite swiping his proverbial hand across the frame. One moment he was part of the scene, a welcome companion; the next, he was nothing more than a ghost in Steve Rogers’ walls, unwanted and, with any luck in the world, ephemeral.

Which was why he startled when Steve suddenly slid a plate of pasta in front of him. Had their positions been reversed, a _jumpy?_ would have been on his tongue, but Steve said nothing, sliding into the chair across from him, deliberately angling his chair away from the table, and tucking into his own plate with silent and bewildering speed. “It’s good,” he said, between bites, when Tony stared numbly first at the offering, and then at Steve, who didn’t look at him, gazing at the far wall, looking somewhat far away. “Gotta keep up. This world’ll eat you alive if you don’t.”

Tony wanted to quip something to cover up his brief jumpiness, but Steve seemed totally indifferent to it, so he tucked into the meal, instead. _Didn’t know you were a chef_ , sat on the tip of his tongue, waiting in the wings, but he was so reluctant to step on a conversational landmine when Steve was sitting less than five feet away from him that he held his tongue and ate in mirrored silence. And it was _good_. He was surprised at how good it was—“When’d you learn to cook?” he asked, a thankfully-neutral question.

Steve swallowed deliberately before speaking, forgoing a quicker end to his meal to answer a foolish question: “I picked it up. Mostly here. Now,” he clarified enigmatically. He took another bite, chewed, swallowed, and continued at the same plodding conversational pace: “Ma cooked. I watched, sometimes. Knew how to work a stove. We had stoves.” He looked at Tony briefly, daring him to say something. 

_What was it like, when they invented fire?_ or _Did rock technology change your life or complicate it?_ Tony held his tongue. Neither was worth interrupting him, and Steve rewarded him with an answer: “I did watch videos. Teach you what to buy. What to do with it.” He shrugged one shoulder and downed another bite. “I can jumpstart a car. I can boil a pot of water and dice some vegetables.”

Tony said, “I can make a telescope from scratch. Can’t scramble eggs.” When Steve cocked his head at him, he realized he’d admitted a flaw and hastily backpedaled: “I _can_ , in fact, scramble eggs. I cannot scramble them to society’s expectations. It’s tragic, really. Lone innovator against the world.”

Sliding his empty plate aside, Steve watched him with unerring attention. Tony held his stare, refusing to fold immediately. Then he folded immediately, flicking the sunglasses across the table and jumping a little when Steve’s hand closed on them like a mousetrap. “ _Don’t_ do that.”

Gently, almost lovingly, Steve swept the sunglasses into both palms, then used the corner of his pristine white shirt to begin smearing off the indefatigable red dust off it. Tony said, “You’re a bit of a heathen, too, you know that?”

“The Man upstairs hasn’t really answered any calls in a while,” Steve said, still looking at his glasses, his words eerily flat again. “So, I think I’m off the chain.” Holding up the clean glasses to the light, he made an approving noise, replaced them over his eyes despite being indoors, and leveled Tony an even more disconcertingly unreadable look, bright blue eyes hidden behind the dark lenses, “And so’re you. Feel free to finish,” he added, taking off the glasses and picking up his empty plate, carrying it off to the sink.

Tony asked, a touch incredulously, “You’re just gonna leave?”

“No,” Steve said. “I’m gonna draw.”

Tony stood, crowding his own plate onto the counter and saying, “Can I watch?”

Steve said simply, “No.” Then, accepting Tony’s plate and washing it off for him, he added, “You don’t have to leave, if you don’t want to.”

How Tony was supposed to entertain himself in the empty apartment was up to Tony. But—with rain still lashing the window and the offer of getting to read more of Steve Rogers’ mind on the table, he wasn’t surprised when he said, “Well, as long as I get to sleep in the bed. You can have the couch.”

“Gracious,” Steve deadpanned, replacing the dishes like they had never been. “Anybody ever tell you you were—”

“Many times,” Tony interjected, flitting around him, boldly reacquainting himself with Steve’s living space. A couple more plants, but most had been concentrated in the front living area. Really, there wasn’t much else to remark on—if anything, there seemed to be even _less_ stuff than Tony remembered, like he was moving out, and he actually said aloud, “Going somewhere?”

Steve was still in the kitchen, but his low tone carried surprisingly well across the small space: “No.”

Tony found a tall stack of books on a short table, every title about war: the Cold War, the Korean War, the French-Algerian War, the Cuban Revolution, the Vietnam War, the Persian Gulf War. He dared to pick one of them up, flipping through it, and saw penciled notes all over it , an analyst’s mind at work, question marks and exclamation points. He set the book down with a feeling of profound uneasiness.

Tony searched briefly for friendly fiction like _The Hobbit_ or even _The Great Gatsby_ , anything more reminiscent of a man pulled from the mid-twentieth century looking for a taste of home, and only saw emptiness, an austere, almost defiant commitment to adapt, to evolve and absorb. Steve said, “I’d lend you one, but—”

“No,” Tony assured, voice quiet, almost numb. He looked around the space—bed, small dresser with lamp, the _shield_ , almost a jolt to see it laying on the floor in the corner, and he told Steve seriously, “You know that’s worth $140 million in scrap alone, right?”

Steve drawled in the same tone of benumbed nonchalance, “Is that expensive?”

Tony made a strangled noise, crossing the floor to pick it up, not even thinking _this is not yours_ as he closed his fingers around it and lifted it from the floor. It weighed nearly nothing and fit like a _dream_ in his hands. The world’s finest accessory. _It was made for you, sir_ , an unknown presenter preened as he held onto Captain America’s shield, marveling at it.

Steve stepped up alongside him, and Tony gripped the shield, instinctively clinging to something precious, but Steve just said, “Put it on.” Then he held the edge for Tony, lofting the shield vertical, letting Tony slide his left arm through the buckles like a perfectly tailored suit. He tightened the straps, and Steve let go, and it was like being one with his own armor, a perfect extension that moved with the sinuosity of weightless _water_.

“This is transformative,” he said aloud, barely caring that the words were unfiltered awe, turning to Steve and holding the shield at his side, a knight missing only one piece of his gear. It hadn’t even occurred to him, right hand flexing momentarily, that Steve wore it on his right arm. _This is your weapon_ , he thought, and shoved it forward in slow motion, feinting a blow. Steve simply stood arm’s length from him, unafraid, aware that he couldn’t do much. Or maybe curious what he _would_ do, should he hack the code.

 _There’s a cheat code for every universe_ , Tony thought, aware that he could use the _edge_ of the shield like a blade, with the right momentum. And it would fly like a frisbee. In a big open space—or even a long corridor, presuming the ricochets weren’t an issue—he could certainly train it as a weapon without power.

Shocked that, two seconds after acquiring the world’s most perfect shield, he’d already found a way to weaponize it, Tony husked aloud like he needed to carve the thought out of his skin before it metastasized, “I’m not you, Cap.” Then he began unbuckling it.

Steve took the shield gently from his arms. He set it on the bed. Tony felt cold, like he’d—failed an important test, somehow, done something wrong. “I should go,” he said suddenly, tone weird, not quite right.

“Is everything okay, Tony?”

 _Yes. No. Maybe. Try again?_ Tony shook the Magic Eight Ball that lived in his head a few more times, but it produced no suitable answers. “I’m just tired,” he decided on, which was absurd at seven PM. Even for an aging playboy, the party didn’t _start_ for three more hours, minimum. “I should get out of your hair.”

“It’s not a problem,” Steve said. Then, like he was trying to be compromising: “I don’t have a television, but I do have a radio. If you wanna fiddle with it.”

“No TV?” Tony repeated, even making a gesture to lead-the-way with one hand. Seeming grateful for his continued presence, Steve did.

“Don’t need one,” Steve said, like it was that simple. He led them back into the plant room and nodded at the radio, seated where a TV might be.

Tony flicked it on. “Hello, darling,” he told it. “I’m afraid I don’t know your name.” He didn’t play around with radios, much. How many geniuses futzed around with sundials? The future was _that_ way; and much as nostalgia lingered in every suit of armor he kept around, he tried to avoid precisely the sort of cling-to-the-past sadness that made one keep old radios around. Still, this one purred, and he had an innate fondness for _machines_. Machines were better than people. “Where’d you find it?”

“S.H.I.E.L.D.,” Steve admitted, sounding a touch reluctant. He circled the room, checking on his plants absentmindedly. Tony ignored him, fussing, flicking between stations. Old music—music from the forties, he surmised, maybe thirties—trickled out of the little living music box. “They put me up, when I came out. I moved out after a month. Landed here, eventually. The rest is history. But you knew that.”

Tony blinked, looked over at him, and asked, “It ever get lonely?”

Steve frowned. “This century? Or this room?”

Abandoning the radio on a light swingy tune, Tony folded onto the floor and said, “Both.”

Steve’s frown deepened at him, like he couldn’t understand why Tony would return to the same fight, but Tony stretched his legs out and admitted, “I’m not much of a floor rat, and these floors are _terrible_ , but your furniture _is_ somewhat lacking.”

Steve looked around briefly, seeming to realize he didn’t have space for guests, and shrugged apologetically. “Couches are redundant,” he said.

Bringing his knees towards his chest so he’d have somewhere to sling his arms, Tony said, “Clearly, you’ve never met my couches.”

Steve folded himself into his chair, pulled a notebook out from under it— _ah-hah_ , Tony thought, well aware that he would never see the sketchbook in the same place again, if Steve had half a mind of concealment—and flipped it open, pencil tucked away in its spine. “Well, you’ve got the people to fill ‘em,” Steve told him. “I don’t need a couch.” He started drawing something, pencil scritching across the paper, back and forth.

Tony asked automatically, “What’s your muse?”

Steve ignored him. “We used to have a couch. A radio, too. A refrigerator. A bike.” He listed them off like groceries. On the page, he cut another short line, intersecting the first, it seemed. With the same gentle movements, he worked. Hours of it would drive a man mad.

Tony wanted to watch him work for hours.

Both feet planted firmly on the floor, Steve cut another line on the page—not a triangle; not a shapes’ guy, then—and went on, “I like the radio. I don’t need a couch. I don’t need much.” He curved a new line, over and over. Like adding dimension all at once—it either had to happen on the first attempt or it would never happen. “I don’t. I don’t want it. Maybe you do.” He didn’t pause, his tone somewhere between non-judgmental and non-caring. “I don’t know. I don’t want to presume,” he said, saving himself.

Tony’s ire fizzled slowly into nothingness. He defended himself honestly: “You only live once. Gotta step up and make it count.”

Steve said, “Makes sense.” It was clear that it didn’t, at least not to him. He curved another line. “Not much makes sense, you know, but you do.”

That caught Tony off-guard. “Really?”

“Mm-hm.” Still looking at the page, Steve revealed, “Lonely guy like you. Needs people.” Tony made an affronted noise, entirely against his volition. “People-happy. You need people. Home life’s not so great, is it?”

It was Tony’s turn to threaten the inevitable, standing up and shaking impotently in the middle of Steve Rogers’ living room floor, heart beating fast even though his own voice was guttingly sharp with the need to retaliate: “You don’t know me.”

Steve lifted his gaze without lifting his head, demeaning in its efficiency: “I do.” Tipping his chin up, he added calmly, “You’re the guy who needs people to be happy.”

Tony stuffed down an audible noise. Storming out was in his bones. He did not know why he did not, why he did not run while he still had the chance. 

Steve Rogers went on casually, “Why’re you lookin’ at _me_ , Tony?” He looked back down at his book and its sketch, and there was a tremble in his hand, and it rooted Tony’s feet to the floor, made it impossible to leave. 

“Am I gonna keep your head above water? Am I?” The repetition thudded in his chest like a knife. Tony took a single, hard-fought step towards the door. Steve Rogers swallowed, then, gripping one hand into a fist. Then he said, “I can’t save you, Tony. I can only be with you.”

“I don’t want you to—” Tony drew in a breath. He’d scream the rest if he finished it. Then he looked around. He let out an exhausted little half-laugh. “God. This isn’t even about me. Is it?”

Steve Rogers didn’t answer. He returned to his sketch. Tony took a step _towards_ him. When Steve didn’t reach, Tony dared to take another. Finally, he saw what Steve was drawing: a little figure, faceless, hunched over its own shield. It looked subhuman. It looked in agony. Tony thought, _Why aren’t you thriving?_

Carefully, Tony perched on the arm of the chair. Steve finished the sketch in silence. Tony listed against him, watching, disrupting. Steve paused only when he was finished, then leaned into Tony, lending him some of his weight, seeming—somehow exhausted, and deeply alone, and completely, utterly empty, like he’d forgotten how to fill his world with colors.

Tony said suddenly, unthinkingly, “Move in with me.”

Steve rumbled, “I can’t.”

“I don’t give a shit about the plants. Bring ‘em.”

“I can’t,” Steve repeated, quiet and tired.

“Chef’s kitchen. It’s to die for. You can teach me how to scramble eggs. Or we can learn together. That could be interesting.”

“Tony,” Steve pleaded. He folded the book shut, holding it on his lap. “I _can’t_.”

“I’m not—” Tony sighed, frustrated, trying to articulate, _I’m not asking for your hand in marriage, asshole; just come be with me, I hate walking in the rain, I being home alone in the rain_. He settled on, “Do it for me.”

“Find someone else,” Steve insisted, very, very dully.

Tony _growled_ , “I _chose_ you. I told Nick _this’ll work_. And he said, _Who do you want? Elites? Seasoned warriors?_ And I said, no, give me the fuckups.” Tipping his cheek against Steve’s head, somewhat boldly and definitely presumptuously, he insisted, “You and your problems and your ninety-seven plant children’s problems are _my problem_. Got it? I chose it. I signed up for this.” Heart still beating fast under the arc reactor, he insisted, “Just let me have a _chance_.”

Steve didn’t move away, which Tony dared to believe was good, _enough_.

“I don’t know,” Steve said quietly.

Tony sighed, turned his head, hiding his face in rich, soft, unbearably perfect golden hair for a moment. Pillowing his cheek on Steve Rogers’ head, he muttered, “I hate you so much sometimes.” He didn’t mean it, not _really_ , but of course he had to find something like _gravity_ with an enigma wrapped in a war frozen on ice for seventy years. 

“Just. Completely exasperating. And you speak French. _And_ you cook.” Reluctantly shifting away, aware that he would overstay his moment—without even embarrassing, psychoactive drugs to lean into as an excuse for such slip-ups—Tony said again, “Just. Think about it. Look, you don’t have to sleep in _my_ bed, you just have to show up, you can have your own space. But then we’d be a proper team.”

“A team,” Steve repeated, somewhat surprised, almost confused, like the notion had escaped him. Tony wanted to kiss the furrow that appeared between his brow.

 _Cool it_. “Right _now_ ,” he began, and tugged on Steve’s hand, which made him look at it with disconcerting intentness, like Tony was about to spring a beartrap on him. Tony forced himself not to yank his hand back in preemptory alarm. _I trust you_. And that was the craziest part: he _did_. “Get up here.”

Steve flowed to his feet and became very still as Tony shamelessly flung both arms around him and squeezed tightly. He was furnace-warm and surprisingly soft for a guy with enough muscle to tango with a polar bear. Tony instantly regretted the many weeks he’d spent _not_ cozying up to him, trying to instill a strong sense of _this is a terrific precedent_ even though Steve stood ramrod still in his hold, almost defiantly unresponsive.

Just as he was about to let go, give up, Steve’s arms slowly curled around him, almost hesitant at first, then surprisingly emphatic, once they committed. He hugged Tony like he meant it, pressing him against his own chest securely.

Tony shivered in relief, unable to quell how much he . . . really did _need_ it. It set something aright in him, every time. He clung to it, tighter and tighter, until his knuckles ached, suddenly desperate for it, as desperate for the contact as he would never acknowledge himself to be.

Because he knew, in his heart, that Steve would never breathe a _word_ of it, and that was what mattered. It could be their secret. He could be honest with the one person who would never use it as a weapon.

Drawing in a fortifying breath against Steve’s shoulder, he promised, “We’re gonna be fine.”

Steve nodded shallowly. “We’re gonna be fine,” Tony repeated robustly. “Don’t doubt me.”

“I’m not,” Steve assured, pulling back, reaching his own quiet tolerance. He looked around, almost at a loss, and Tony asked:

“What . . . changed?”

Steve looked at him, frowned, and asked, “What do you mean?”

Tony shrugged. “You used to be . . . .” Well. Tony hadn’t _known_ , exactly, because the glimpses of Steve he’d gotten of Steve’s personal life had been partial, the man alone, taken nearly out of context. Seeing the context behind Steve Rogers was stunningly pervasive, a raw glimpse into a World War II survivor scraping by in the twenty-first century. “Never mind,” he said.

Steve frowned, like he knew what he was implying. “It’s . . . grounding,” Steve answered anyway, somehow both painfully truthful and a non-answer. A sharp ache hit Tony right behind the arc reactor. He stuffed down a grimace.

And the request: _Move in with me_.

Instead, Tony asked, “Can I stay?”

Steve Rogers looked very wary. “You _want_ to?”

“Just the night,” Tony said with a shrug.

Steve sighed, seeming too tired to argue. “If you want,” was all he said.

“I don’t need you to save me from my demons,” Tony said suddenly, seeing how world-weary Steve Rogers was, battling a monster Tony couldn’t see, gutting him, eating him alive. “I just need you to be with me. A _friend_ ,” he clarified, because it was too much to say more, out loud, right then.

Steve looked at him with dark blue eyes. Thunder rumbled softly outside, a quiet reminder of a storm not yet passed. “I am your friend, Tony,” Steve said, like it was already obvious, yet hearing the words aloud—steadied something that Tony had not realized had been teetering inside him.

Nodding, pleased, he said, “Got a deck of cards around?”

Steve asked, “How’d you know?”

“ _Solitaire’s_ the most popular card game in the world,” Tony said. “Don’t need two players for that. _War’s_ more fun.”

Steve smirked a little. “I missed you.”

It had been less than two weeks since they’d seen each other. It felt like three years. “I missed you, too, big guy,” Tony said, permitting honesty.

He had come uninvited into Steve Rogers’ life, but it was strangely easy to feel at _home_ with him and his twenty-odd plant children as they sat on the floor, listened to the old radio, and talked about sports cars and motorcycles.

“Never ridden in a sports’ car,” Steve was saying, cutting the deck quickly but unceremoniously. “Not exactly a good judge.”

“I used to like bikes,” Tony said conversationally, leaning back on his hands. “I thought, wind in your hair, that’s a feeling you can’t beat. The power. It’s like riding a horse but . . . better.”

“Elite guy like you rides a lotta horses?” Steve asked, dishing out cards.

Tony huffed. “You’re kidding, right?” That got Steve to look up. “Horses are . . . temperamental. Unpredictable. Ill-suited for human cargo,” he added, grimacing as he added, “Why sit in a saddle all day when you can sit behind the wheel of an Audi A8?”

Steve said, “I miss horses.” Cocking his head, Tony laid his hand aside. Steve did the same, elaborating, “The only thing in War that made sense was the living. The people. You fought for the people. You also killed people. War is . . . complicated.” Smiling, he added, “You can retrain a German horse with one hand. They’re not like people. They’ll switch sides. They wanted to outlive the war, too. Can be real sweet, you know. 

“You know, early on, they wanted me to ride ‘em when we first met up with our allies, sort of—propaganda, I suppose. Left an impression. The American boys needed to see their guy on the ground, but for our friends, it was . . . indelible. I came to like it, too, handling them, riding into town. Always made folks listen up, too. Some people, they only listen to somebody on a high horse.” Shaking his head, he added somberly, “Wasn’t always fun, though. Found a big fella under a cart once, got the cart off him. Wasn’t worth saving. It’s a damn shame when you have to shoot a horse.”

Cold, Tony pressed quietly, “Shoot a lotta horses, Tex?”

Steve shrugged. The now-explicable blankness was back in his expression as he said simply, “A few. Food. Pick out the runts, the one’s not pulling their weight, the ornery ones.” Numbly, he said, “It’s not like killing a rabbit. Rabbits don’t look you in the eye before they die. _Big_ eyes. Real big. They know you’re betraying them.” Shaking his head, he mused, “Haven’t thought about those damn horses in a long time. They’re all dead, now. But . . . we killed some of them. Musta killed a lot of them, across the War.” 

Sweeping the cards into a single pile, he said quietly, almost not meant to be heard: “Wasn’t just the horses, you know. But they were the big ones. Horse meat . . . it fed a lot of people. _Our ancestors hunted woolly elephants. Why are we starving on grass?_ Came up with all sorts of justifications, made sense at the time when your belly was empty. They were machines and then they were food. That War dragged on a decade longer, we would’ve been eating our dogs.” 

At Tony’s evidently horrified expression, he assured somewhat antithetically, “It didn’t.”

Swallowing hard, Tony said, “Horse meat.”

Steve’s expression blackened briefly. For one moment, Tony thought he would describe it. The texture. The taste. The vivid, animal struggle for being alive in the greatest war ever fought.

Then he just said calmly, “Don’t ever say that to me again.”

Tony didn’t know if he knew it had become a political backhand, a way of saying an administration was corrupt for feeding its people on immoral meat. It didn’t matter. He nodded once in assurance.

Steve leveraged himself to his feet smoothly, retreating into the kitchen. Tony had a horrified and unwanted image of him returning with a slab of wrapped meat marked EQUESTRIAN, but he just returned a moment later with a different book, loaded with insert pages. He set it on the floor, flipped it open, and Tony automatically shuffled closer to look as he explained, “These are my kids.”

Tony shifted so he could sit next to him as he carefully indicated each soldier in the scanned photograph, explaining briefly, “Lazlo, Private,” or “Finnegan, Private First Class.” He lingered at times, trying to recall a name before pulling the page out of its plastic sleeve and consulting the tiny print he’d written on the back, nodding and saying the name. “Shouldn’t forget,” he said, almost to himself.

Page after page after page after page. There were more lineups, but there were also portraits of officers or higher-ranking enlisted soldiers, and a handful of images of soldiers with canine units—“Guard dogs.” Steve swept through the memories, and Tony watched him, not even participating, just _watching_ , a mind at work, a man clinging to his own story with both hands, explaining almost excitedly, “This was the night before the raid.” Then he made a meaningful x gesture over one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine of the faces—

Tony finally stilled his hand, asking almost hoarsely, “How many survived?”

Quietly, Steve slowly tapped out four individuals of the fifteen men standing. “Nobody wins in war,” he said simply. “It just ends. Eventually.”

Tony swallowed and shut the book for him. They were only halfway through, but Steve let him. “I’m sorry,” Steve said, sounding flat and apologetic, the same almost-blank tone. “Not something a civilian should—”

“You’re right. It’s not.” Tony let his hand linger on the book, covering Steve’s. “You know the only difference between a civilian and a soldier is training, right? You were trained for this.”

“I volunteered for this,” Steve said, sounding somewhere between fiercely proud and unimaginably agonized. “This was my duty.”

“This,” Tony said, tugging down his shirt collar, revealing the glowing blue reactor, “was not mine.”

Steve looked at it for several unblinking moments, seemingly entranced. “You never talk about it, you know.”

“What’s there to say? They put it in me.”

Steve’s gaze flicked up to his eyes. “There’s more to it.”

Tony tried not to seethe, and failed. “You want the gory details? Want to dream about them?”

Steve looked at him without fear or affront, just enormous sympathy underneath tired, dark, soldier eyes. “I wish I could make you feel safe. But I don’t know if I’m a safe place to run to, Tony.” He flattened his hand on the book. “I’m . . . I don’t _belong_ here. I don’t know . . . how this _works_. I make it work. It’s the best I can do.”

“It’s the best any of us can do,” Tony said, letting his anger deflate, sink down, disappear into the deep. It was not worth clinging to, like shards of glass, cutting into his hands. The blood still dripped onto the proverbial floor, but he could ignore it. For now. “Nobody’s born with a code. We make it up as we go.”

“I’m a grown man who barely knows how to hold a conversation with strangers. They’d lock me up if they knew how much I was. . . .” He made an ambiguous noise. “How ill-equipped I was to survive here.”

“Seem to be surviving pretty well to me,” Tony observed quietly.

Steve smiled very, very ruefully. “You know the problem, Tony? The _why_ I can’t thrive?” He spoke the words like he’d heard them before, _failure to thrive_ , over and over. It was a noxious word in his vocabulary. “I can’t let it go. I can’t let any of it go. And I’m only getting farther away from it. It only gets . . . less possible, every day.”

“You wanna go back.” The words were not a question.

Steve did not insult him with a lie. “I do. Wouldn’t you?”

Tony thought about it. He couldn’t imagine it. Literally, could not—there were too many variables, too many things dependent on what the future actually held and what he would truly lose versus see changed beyond all recognition. “I don’t know,” he said, as truthfully as possible.

Steve nodded. The world-weariness was back, but he seemed to appreciate the honesty, husking out, “A world where nothing was right but things made sense. Rather be there than one where everything is right and nothing makes sense.”

“Still got our problems,” Tony assured, which only made him grimace. Deeply, pained. A punch to the gut. “Not your problems,” he tried to amend.

“I miss the _War_ , Tony,” Steve said, so softly he almost could not be heard. “What kind of sickness is that? I miss the _War_.”

“You miss the people,” Tony said. Steve didn’t look at him, staring at the closed book, pulling it gently away from Tony, holding it in his own hands, lost in his own words, his own terrible confession. “You miss the routine, the familiarity. It was your home for, what, two years? Going on three? You had a place, a purpose, a sense of rightness in your world. And now,” he waited until Steve looked over, dark blue eyes somber, “you start a new chapter. You don’t get it back. You just . . . start again.” He gesticulated vaguely at the reactor, reminding, “I had to. And I didn’t have half your guts or grit when I started, but I still made it out. You made it here. I think that means something. I _know_ ,” he amended stubbornly, “that means something.”

Steve looked at him quietly, hungry to believe. “Who you are today, Tony,” he said unexpectedly, “was inside you then. They didn’t make you.” He set the book down and drew in a long breath, like he was preparing for a deep dive underwater. “They challenged you. You rose to it.”

“And you can rise to _this_ ,” Tony insisted at once, grateful that even when he was floundering at sea, Captain America had the words. “I know you can. I know _you_.” He bumped his shoulder against Steve’s, adding, “You went up against an army from outer space with nothing but a tin can and _gumption_.”

“I had a team,” Steve said simply, quietly. Both answer, admission, and relieved realization.

“Yeup. And you always will.” Shifting slowly, groaning a little as old bones protested, Tony said, “I am not a floor rat anymore.”

Steve flowed neatly to his feet, unfolding like a perfect toy soldier. He pulled Tony up. Tony blinked, said, “Thanks.”

“Thank you,” Steve replied, releasing him after a long beat. “I mean that.”

“And I meant what I said,” Tony said. “All of it. Including the _come live with me, it’ll be fun_ part. But if you must have your own space, I can live with that, too. The fresh air is good for me.”

“Came all this way,” Steve mused, “for a little company?”

Tony shrugged. “What can I say?” He walked over to the tallest plant, pointed a thumb at it, and said, “Can’t find _this_ in Central Park.”

Steve smiled a little, warm, amused. “Lots of people keep houseplants, Tony.”

“House _gardens_ ,” Tony corrected, looking around, appreciating the sheer number of plants for the space for what it was worth. “You really go all out, don’t you?”

“I thought one would be lonely,” Steve admitted.

Because of course that was what he thought. “God,” Tony huffed, back to him as he examined the spider plant. _I love you_ , he didn’t say, the words too strong, too intense for the quiet, interstitial space. “Of course you did,” was all he said.

Steve let him stay the night. Tony thought it would be difficult, with the lack of a couch, but Steve merely said, “C’mere,” and Tony crawled into his arms—wondering, in some small corner of his mind, if he hadn’t come to unwind, after all, as tension unlocked from his shoulders and back.

If Steve had a problem with it, he didn’t say, either feigning or already asleep. Probably had to feed his plant children at three-thirty-five AM exactly, Tony thought, snickering uncharitably but huddling closer, willing himself to cling to the warmth he couldn’t keep.

Yet. He’d find a way. He would.

Which was why he woke up alone, sulking gloomily at the realization that he’d already failed.

It was barely seven and Steve was already freshly showered and clearly glowing from a run, sitting in the kitchen reading one of his marked-up books. Tony blinked at him, surprised he was still there, and then looked around, half-hopefully. Steve read his mind: “Sorry. I don’t drink coffee.”

Tony groaned deep in his chest. Steve smiled a little, repressing it too late as he added calmly, “Get dressed and we’ll get some.” He chucked a plastic-wrapped toothbrush at Tony.

Tony caught it, grumbling audibly as he wandered over, wearing nothing but briefs, and reminded, “I don’t _have_ clothes here. Shall I go freshly nude?”

Steve looked over at him at that, eyeing him up and down once in an apparently unable-to-help-himself manner, before drawling, “Well. I have belts.”

Steve thankfully had a waistline to die for, so his jeans fit better than expected, but the shirt was laughably long. Shoving it halfway down his pants helped. “Voila,” Tony preened, perfectly disguised in Steve Rogers’ clothing.

“Incredible,” Steve drawled, affecting unimpressed as he smoothed the soft blue shirt over Tony’s shoulders. “Spitting image.”

Tony grinned, said, “But with my own spin, right?” He waggled his eyebrows. Steve sighed.

“Yes. Always.” He left his hands on Tony’s shoulders for a moment longer, lingering.

Tony—he wasn’t a thinker, he was a doer, so he just leaned up and kissed him once.

For a very brief moment, he thought Steve would throw him out of his little apartment, out of his life completely, for how stock-still Steve went, like a picture reverting to its still life state. 

Then, seeming to recognize what had happened, he blinked once at Tony, looked him up and down again, and pressed his own kiss to Tony’s lips, humming a little when Tony tangled a hand in his hair, holding onto him, keeping him there.

Peace washed over Tony, and stayed there.

**Author's Note:**

> Translations:  
> (Italian)  
>  _Si. No. Mi dispiace._ \- Yes. No. I'm sorry.  
>  _Buon giorno._ \- Good morning.  
>  _Buona sera._ \- Good evening.  
>   
> (French)  
>  _Je parle couramment le français._ \- I speak French fluently.


End file.
